AAS 201st Meeting, January, 2003
Session 123. Supernovae and Other Distance Indicators
Poster, Thursday, January 9, 2003, 9:20am-4:00pm, Exhibit Hall AB

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[123.06] Optical Photometry of High Redshift Type Ia SN from the IfA Deep Survey

B. Barris, J.L. Tonry (UH Manoa IfA), B.P. Schmidt (MSSSO), R. Chornock, A.V. Filippenko, W. Li (UC Berkeley), C.J. Hogan, G. Miknaitis, C. Stubbs (U. Washington), P. Challis, S. Jha, R.P. Kirshner, T. Matheson (CfA), A.G. Riess (STScI), B. Leibundgut, J. Sollerman, J. Spyromilio (ESO), K. Krisciunas, C. Smith, N. Suntzeff (CTIO), P.M. Garnavich, S.T. Holland (Notre Dame), A. Clocchiatti (PUC)

We present initial results from the IfA Deep Survey, a survey carried out during the fall and winter of 2001/2002 which included a supernova search component. Over the course of approximately 6 months fields with an area of 2.5 square degrees were observed typically 15 times in multiple colors (RIZ) with wide-field imagers atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii. The continuous nature of the survey allowed detection of the supernovae long before they reached maximum brightness, as well as coverage for the remainder of the survey.

More than 140 objects were identified as potential supernova candidates and actively monitored throughout the campaign, and nearly half of these were observed spectroscopically. Many of these objects turned out to be Type II SN or other objects, such as AGN, but a total of 14 spectroscopically confirmed Type Ia SN with a redshift range of 0.13-1.03 were discovered, while 15 other objects have convincing high redshift Type Ia light curves but no SN spectrum (though some have host galaxy redshifts). These SN are used to construct a Hubble diagram, adding a large number of points to previous surveys. We also construct color-color and color-magnitude diagrams to test the effectiveness of photometric observations to estimate redshifts and distinguish between various types of supernovae.

Our extensive pre-maximum coverage of the rising portion of the light curve allows us to study the rise times of high redshift supernovae in detail. The rise time can offer as much insight into supernova explosions as decline rate, and we compare our observations with low redshift SN Ia. This work is partially supported by NASA grant HST GO 09118.09-A.


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